The Essence of Dreams
by PhaerynTao
Summary: The mind has strange and various ways of getting our attention. [contains violence]


a/n: I remember taking a course on how powerful the mind is and what its capable of, and that pretty much inspired this story.

that...

and I was looking for an excuse to get Aerrow and Piper in a heavy petting session.

No flames or harsh critiques, please. I already know it doesnt make much sense.

* * *

He knew the signals. A quickened breath, cold sweat began to run down the side of his face, his emerald eyes wide for any detail with pupils dilated like a cat in the dark. As Aerrow slipped into the hated REM sleep, his conscious mind stayed awake even as he faded away from reality. This was not a place to gaze into a lush green field, or to count the stars. He never was placed there, like a child taking a rest from veracity. Each night for several years now, he had been thrown into this realm that haunted him even during the day. And each night he would believe himself to be ready for whatever would come his way. He was asleep, but he was awake. A combination that no normal sleep pattern would contain. 

Aerrow breathed in deeply through his nose, smelling the familiar stench of this world. As his body quickly and surely materialized, he already started walking. The dank stony corridors held feeble torches to their sides, making shadows flicker frighteningly across each object within reach. There were cells that looked like rooms inside of a prison, leading into infinite voids of surrealism. Aerrow made sure his footsteps were quiet, at ease, undetectable. Screams reached his ears, screams of undoubted torture, but they no longer worried him as they did when the terrors first started invading his dreams. Acid dripped from the ceiling, falling into his hair and stinging his scalp. His hands gripped his twin lightning blades, knowing that in this world they did absolutely nothing for him, but if he learned one thing in his nightmares, it was that having a weapon nearby made him feel less vulnerable.

This was where he spent his nights, hours upon hours of battle, sweat, pain, torture, and hollering until he woke up, his perspiration drenching the sheets of his bed. And as hard as he tried, he could never get used to it, never prepare for whatever his collective conscious would throw at him the next night. He gave up long ago figuring out what his mind was trying to tell him through these atrocious sessions, he even stayed up for weeks not wanting to go to sleep, all the while attempting to find an answer to either why he was having these night terrors and how he could avoid them. Work. Study. Work. Study. It was never ending, so finally he conceded to his abusive mind and its nasty parlor tricks. The nights seemed like a constant struggle to keep sane, and soon he knew that his efforts would be in vain.

Aerrow was plagued. Either way, whether day or night, they would come for him.

The sights, the sounds, the air he breathed in this wretched place inside of his head were enough to make him sick, but no matter how hard he tried to bring himself to vomit, he never could. The gross feeling just stayed nestled and disgustingly cozy inside of his toned stomach. Every nerve ending in his body was screaming 'danger' and 'run', but he knew that if he stayed in one place, the deadliness would just seek him out itself.

"_Aerrow."_

Whipping his head around behind him to face the voice that spoke his name, he saw nothing. But he definitely heard something, and his eyes darted hopelessly in every which way.

It came again, this time it laughed childishly, like a young woman being tickled slightly. However innocent it sounded, however, Aerrow knew it meant nothing good.

"_Why don't you run, Aerrow?" _

That voice. That fucking voice. He knew that voice. Yet he couldn't identify it with a face. Not here, not now. His lungs pulsed air harder than ever. That voice was almost always here, taunting him with redundant questions and candid laughs. Aerrow felt invisible hands gliding up his body and grabbing hold of his neck, strangling him. He gasped and tried to keep from suffocating. The hands were cold and bitter, yet they were soft as baby's skin.

"_It would be better if you just accepted it, Aerrow."_

"Gaahh! Accepted _what, _dammit?!"

The voice didn't answer, it merely faded, drawing back its wraith-like hands back with it into darkness. Aerrow knew he was on a thin line, between what he hadn't a clue. There was this feeling of foreboding if he didn't do…do _something. _

But what?

The tricks and cryptic games had to be coming from somewhere. Somewhere in his apparently complicated mind. Aerrow fell to his knees on the dirty stone floor, coughing and sputtering, saliva leaking unnoticed at the corner of his mouth. The realness of his nightmares never ceased to amazing him. Standing up again and roughly brushing the back of his forearm across his lips, he walked on, not giving it a second thought as to whether he should or not.

There was a dungeon door, nailed with rusted metal designs. Slowly his hand reached up to grasp the handle, pulling and opening it to view the void behind. Aerrow stared at the hollowness, curiously reaching out into the dark and feeling nothing but cold air. This was peculiar, he thought. Usually when he encountered doors there was always something on the other side of them, not just blank abyss. He craned his neck to what was behind him; the swampy smelling dungeon where it repeatedly started. Narrowing his olive eyes, he threw himself quickly into the abyss, diving headfirst. The wind rushed over his streamlined body as he fell downward. It was evident that he felt at home whenever he flew high in the sky. Even when he was falling, he never panicked, simply thought out what needed to be done and still had the time to enjoy the freedom of descending.

There was nothing inspiring about falling into this hole, nothing exciting, nothing stimulating or spine-tingling. It was dark, cold, and the wind brought forth a nasty taste upon his tongue. But he never looked back, he never cried out as he fell, he simply looked ahead at what was, or what was not, to come. Maybe he would just keep falling until he woke up, he wondered.

He landed with a thud. A sickening thud. Aerrow lay there for a few moments time, realizing that there was no way he could be crippled by the fall, because this wasn't real.

This wasn't real. This wasn't real.

Eyes flickering and making out the slightest bit of light, he walked forward within the circular room, almost tripping on something that lay on the ground beneath him. He looked below him, to see a body similar to his with a cranium decked with wheat blonde hair, and eyes that were wide open, sapphire blue and bloodshot.

Aerrow swallowed noisily, and could see not only Finn's but his entire squadron's carcasses scattered about the area. The first time his reveries threw this at him he nearly drove one of his lightning blades into his stomach out of revulsion. The shock result had worn off by now, and he carefully stepped over the unmoving rigid bodies. Piper was never amongst them, but he never took that into any sort of significance. The blood of his cohorts soaked and stained the bottom of his bare feet and squished between his toes.

"Just where the fuck do you think you're going?"

Aerrow turned around only to have a fist in the middle of his face, and he was thrown back against the clammy wall. Before he was able to rise a strong hand gripped his face, bruising his cheek bones.

"You're such a stupid little child. Nights of this shit and you still don't get it." Dark Ace said, his voice not above a low growl.

Aerrow glared at the Cyclonian, trying to break his grasp on his face.

"Whats there to get? These are my nightmares, nothing more! They're not real!" Aerrow spat in his face, earning him a one way ticket to a hard smack down on the floor.

The Dark Ace drew his energy blade, and held it tauntingly close to the teen's neck. The older male chuckled lowly, his weapon bringing a diabolical glow to his face.

"No matter what is thrown at you, I don't believe I've ever seen you with fear." he said, bringing the energy blade lightly to Aerrow's skin and nicking it, drawing the smallest drop of blood.

"And that, is your biggest problem."

Those were the last words Aerrow heard before Dark Ace's foot flew into his face, knocking him comatose in his already unconscious world.

* * *

It seemed to take forever for him to realize that there were fingers caressing his face. But he couldn't open his eyes to see who it was, who it was that was touching him in this strangely delicate way. He felt them go down his cheek, briefly cup his prominent chin, smooth over his thick eyebrow, run down the small bridge of his nose and then his septum, the forefinger brushing against the lobe of his ear.

Aerrow forced himself away from the curative contact, ignoring the sparks of hope that it enlightened in his beaten stomach. In this world, he associated touch with many things: hit, kick, choke, rape. He could never be too careful. His vision still blurry, he went to grab one of his lightning blades, but they were nowhere to be found. As his eyes began to focus, he saw that he was in a different room. The walls were pure white, so white in fact that it seemed as if there weren't any walls at all, and the brightness just went on and on. The creature in there with him was dark in contrast. Dark skin, dark hair, gold eyes…

In a flash his hand went to her neck and threatened squeeze lethally. It was not the first time that his dreams depicted his tactitionist in human form, but whenever he would touch her she would come apart in his hands like sand in an hourglass. When she did nothing but stare at him with a slight look of pleading, he spoke to her. What also would happen was that she would never speak to him; she would just simply cry silently as if he had violated her in the worst way.

Only this time, Piper wasn't crying.

"Say something." Aerrow said, his voice low and primal.

Her lips parted and his name slipped out like a child about to be slaughtered.

"Aerrow, please."

He drew his hand back like he was burned. Though she may not be the real Piper, she looked and spoke like her, therefore in a sense she _was _her. Even in his dreams he never saw himself hurting her, and he was mortified that he had gripped her neck in such aggression. Aerrow rubbed his eyes brusquely, trying to apprehend the fact that this very moment he wasn't being tormented. Piper wore a stark white dress, like the medieval women in old history books from other worlds he had seen.

She looked almost angelic. But his trust in what was happening still wore thin.

"What are you doing here, Piper?" He asked.

"Waiting for you."

Such an obscure and stupid answer, he thought. But he would never say that to her. It didn't make sense for him treat the first sign of hope within all the luridness with hostility, so he just stared at her in disbelief.

"Do you know why this is happening to me?" Aerrow asked, thinking that it would be worth a shot to try and get some answers from his unconscious level.

Piper looked mournfully thoughtful as she stared out into the pallid nothingness.

"Because you do not show your feelings." She said almost simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"That's fucking ridiculous." He said right away, not being able to help himself.

Piper sighed.

"When we don't show our emotions, we think we keep each other from harm."

Aerrow made a noise that sounded like a snort of doubt.

"So, just because I don't cry and whine about every little thing in the real world I have to get nearly torn to shreds every night I go to sleep?"

"Fear is a powerful emotion, Aerrow. I know you don't like to show it, I know you think it slows you down."

Aerrow said nothing, but began to feel less on guard the more Dream Piper spoke to him. It gave him a still sensation that he was still human, and alive. He sighed, feeling like this was a therapy session. But the more he thought about it, the more he began to remember his feelings that were left undealt with when he was awake. The pressure of being captain, of being in charge, of being close to a certain person and never being able to express himself because it was uncharacteristic, or fear of that person rejecting him.

He hated rejection. Hated being weak. Hated failure. Hated them all so much that he reflexively vowed death before ever having experienced them.

It was ungodly how much emotion he knew he felt during the day, because that's just the way he was. He was a compassionate fighter, in tuned to everything when he drew his blades and clashed crystals with his enemies.

It hit him slowly but surely. He punished his mind. And now his mind was punishing him.

"Every time we dream our mind is trying to tell us something." Piper said, absently massaging her temple.

"What's my mind trying to tell me?" He asked.

"Maybe to fear once in a while."

"I can't do that, Piper."

"Then you'll have nightmares for the rest of your life. Acknowledge your hidden emotions. They're trying to escape."

Aerrow groaned in frustration, letting his head fall into his hands and covering his face. A soft and agonizingly trusting hand touched his shoulder blade, the other hand sliding underneath his arm and laying across his torso. He reveled in the touch, and wished it would grow into something more.

But it couldn't.

Could it?

"Piper…are you real?"

"Of course I am."

"But how did you get here?" He pressed, his voice soft but his intentions desperate.

"Because you suppress your love for me every day, Aerrow. And your psyche won't allow it anymore."

"I have to. There's no way that anything could happen between us. I do too much, and so do you."

Her cold stony silence abused him.

"We…wouldn't have time for each other, you know?" Aerrow said uncertainly. He had gotten over feeling foolish for talking to a dream version of Piper. For all he knew, she was causing him no pain, and he was just fine with that.

"Aerrow…" she whispered, sending chills vibrating up his jutting spine.

"What…?" He was barely able to say, his jade green eyes hooded from her lips being so close to his neck.

Their proximity was beginning to startle him. It took most of his control to not turn around and make love to her right then and there. Aerrow turned his head, and what he saw almost made him tear up. His female ally stared at him with such impossible love and devotion, it shriveled his heart, something that up until now he hadn't been paying much attention to at all.

"You've hurt me, Aerrow."

She still gave him that look, that look that made him feel that if he ever left she would die purely of a broken heart. Her desperation was only matched by his to convince her that he never meant to hurt her and he would always be by her side. Piper perched her chin on his shoulder, their faces inches apart.

"I thought it was obvious…but perhaps you didn't want to allow me to love you."

In a flash Aerrow closed the gap between them, their lips seemingly glued together almost urgently. Bolts of lightning went off inside of his body from how real it felt. In their insistent contact they fell to the white floor together, hands everywhere they could reach. He abandoned his concern of if this was real or not, because it was decided that he no longer cared. This girl, this woman, with dark chocolate skin and a mouth that tasted deliciously human, was real in every sense. It didn't matter that this was inside of his head, because she was the same either way. And he made a silent vow to make this reality when morning came.

Breaking away, he leaned up a little and looked down at her.

"I'll allow you to do anything, Piper. No more holding back." He assured her.

She responded with a grateful smile before gently weaving her fingers in his thick auburn hair and pulling him down again, practically drinking him down into her soul.

She was an elixir, Aerrow thought, one which he consumed like the fire of life. Her body, long and slender, was small and delicate against his broadness. But she took his ravishing as if he were her reason for living as well.

Both pairs of lips swollen, necks bitten and riddled with love marks, they finally calmed and only lay with one another, Aerrow's head cushioned just above her delightfully diminutive breasts with her hands buried in his tufts of hair. The both of them stared at the endless white and just listened to the sound of each other's breathing. After all the horrors and the grotesque experiences, a short moments' time of being with the one he loved melted it all away. Finally, he did and could feel tired without being fearful of what sleep would bring him.

"Will you come for me when you go back, Aerrow?" Piper asked him quietly.

"Yeah, I will." He answered.

His eyes darted and flickered as if bright lights were blinding his vision. He recognized them as the sun's rays. Breathing in deeply and inhaling Piper's scent, he prepared awaken any moment now. Sure, it was welcomed, but this time it wasn't a savior to take him away from hell like it usually was.

Aerrow was never inundated with his mind's frantic attempts to make him see the truth again, for the answers and understanding was safely tucked where it belonged.

His heart.


End file.
